Thanksgiving!

I knew that this time of year it was going to be tough. The holidays are quickly rolling up on us and that makes me miss my family more than I can say. So much so that sometimes I get chocked up singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas during my toddler classes. Anyway, this last Thursday was Thanksgiving and I was wanting to celebrate in style! I was lucky enough to find some friends who let me join in their Thanksgiving feast! On the actual day of Thanksgiving, I made myself a super American dinner of BBQ chicken and Kraft mac and cheese.

YUMMY!

It was excellent but I knew that Sunday was the day of my celebration with friends so I anxiously awaited the day when I would not only have some good old fashioned American food but also good company to go along with it!
The day after Thanksgiving which was actually Thanksgiving evening for my family, I got to have a Skype session with the whole family and it made me feel like I was there even if I only got to be there for an hour :)

Hey there family!

Sunday finally rolled around and I was off to Shizuoka for some friends and food! It was about a 3 hour train ride since I took local trains and not a shinkansen (bullet train) but it had a great view!! I had to go through all of these mountains and even passed right by Mt. Fuji. I also lost my apartment key on the train ride over here but I shall leave that to another post...I had ridden the whole train ride with my homemade pumpkin cheesecake in hand and it arrived safely with me. We spent the next couple of hours getting dinner ready and having some drinks.

Some of the cooking action!

Everything came out great and tasted fantastic! It was a memorable meal :D

I bet you're jealous

my cheesecake!

I ate sooo much

We were all pretty stuffed by the end of the meal but we were satisfied! We stayed up until 1 AM just chatting and picking at left-over cheesecake. Great way to spend my first major holiday away from the family. Thanks ladies!!